IDJF 2021 en route to boosting corporate India’s diversity hiring
4 min read . Updated: 31 Aug 2021, 07:19 PM IST_1630417763736_1630417767637.jpg "India Diversity Job Fair Virtual Edition 2021")
PremiumIDJF2021 also had more than 15 renowned business and HR leaders deliberate on the various aspects of diversity hiring in the IDJF Summit that ran concurrently on the first day of the job fair.
India, 31st August 2021: India Diversity Job Fair 2021 (IDJF2021), presented by Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., India Diversity Forum’s mega job fair, successfully concluded on the 28th of August. With the theme Equal Opportunity For All and with 30 Diversity Hiring Partners IDJF 2021 had over 350 jobs listed. IDJF2021 received more than 5000 registrations and saw over 2500 candidates participate in this two day job fair. IDJF2021 also had more than 15 renowned business and HR leaders deliberate on the various aspects of diversity hiring in the IDJF Summit that ran concurrently on the first day of the job fair.
Mr. Rishi Kapoor, Head – Management Committee, India Diversity Forum, set the context of the day in his welcome address. Mr. Kapoor said “This two day job fair is our effort in making a difference in the employment fabric of India based on the fundamentals of diversity, equity and inclusion". Mr. Kapoor further added “The theme Equal Opportunity For All is reflective of the fundamentals of an ideal employment culture. If a candidate has the qualification and the skills to perform a job, and perform well at that, then he/she should not feel restricted by certain boundaries defined and decided consciously and unconsciously by society and recruiters."
“More diverse companies, are better able to win top talent and improve their customer orientation, employee satisfaction, and decision making, and all that leads to a virtuous cycle of increasing returns" said Mr. Priyaranjan Jha, Managing Director, PepsiCo Hyderabad, in his keynote address.
Sharing how Zee is driving its D&I agenda Mr. Animesh Kumar, President – HR & Transformation, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. shared “At Zee we have given ourselves an ambitious target of doubling our diversity numbers at all points of the organisation from currently at about 25% to 50% by 2025." Mr. Kumar further elaborated “The way we are setting that up is by focusing on three pillars, first is increasing talent supply, second is working on both the conscious and subconscious biases and third is focusing on both the soft as well as the hard infrastructure."
_1630415513948.jpg "Mr. Animesh Kumar, President – HR & Transformation, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd")
“The concept that each and every capable individual should have the same opportunity to succeed irrespective of their background is one of the most important shared beliefs in a democracy" says Mrs. Harshbeena Zaveri, Vice Chairperson and MD of NRB Bearings Ltd and member of the IDF Advisory Board said. She explained “The rationale behind my beliefs is that uplifting women, people of colour, LGBTQI+, or the differently abled, the less privileged castes or class -is necessary to counter the marginalization they experience in society. One group or gender shouldn’t be wielding the power to build society - as such a society will be one that preserves the status quo rather than transcends it to create an equal, just and inclusive society."
Mr. Ganesh Chandan, CHRO, Tata Projects spoke on the importance of agility and flexibility. Mr. Chandan emphasized on how by becoming more flexible organisations can source more talent from a larger pool. Sharing one of the flexibilities that was put into effect at Tata Projects, Mr. Chandan said “we created a set of guideline that helped them [women employees], that enabled them to be productive, for example we completely abolished this 8hr work policy from 9-5:30pm, we said you can work from 6-9 [am] if you are free and then your day starts [where] you have to look after the children and their online classes etc. and then continue to work from 1pm." To streamline this shift and to ensure its effectiveness Mr. Chandan further added “We realized this was new for managers as well as employees. How do employees work effectively from remote locations and how do managers engage and connect with remote employees. Since then we have been running three workshops every month with the focus on engaging and connecting with remote employees [to address this challenge]"
The IDJF Summit 2021 witnessed senior business and HR leaders engage in various sessions throughout the summit. The other leaders who spoke at this summit were Anisha Motwani, Founder & Director, STN Ventures, Ankit Bansal, Founder & CEO, Sapphire Human Solutions, Avantika Susan Nigam, Director & Head HR, PepsiCo Hyderabad, Bhavna Kumar, Director HR, Deutsche Bank, Ekta Singh, CHRO, AGS Health, Gautam Chainani, Group President Human Resources - Strategic Initiatives & Workforce Automation, JSW, Pallavi Poddar, Regional HR Director - India, Middle East, and Africa, Ingersoll Rand, Praveen Menon, Chief People Officer, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Ltd, Raj Raghavan, Senior Vice President & Head of Human Resources, Indigo Airlines (InterGlobe Aviation Ltd), Renu Bohra, CHRO, Schenker India Pvt. Ltd, Dr. Ritu Anand, Chief Leadership & Diversity Officer, TCS, Suchitra Kerkar, Region Head and VP - People n Culture APAC and China, Vestas, Sudha Ravi, CCO, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd., Vidyottama Sharma, Editor-in-Chief, India Diversity Forum.
India Diversity Job Fair (IDJF), an initiative by India Diversity Forum (IDF), is off to a great start to promoting and enhancing diversity hiring in corporate India. India Diversity Forum, a Section 8 company, is a company agnostic and industry-agnostic body formed to further the cause of diversity, equity, and inclusion in India. IDJF was organized and executed in partnership with Sapphire Connect, India’s premium B2B event specialist.
Disclaimer: This content is distributed by SRV Media. No HT journalist is involved in the creation of this content.
